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First new apartment project in Detroit's business district since 1992 gets DDA's OK

Photo by The Roxbury Group
Construction on The Griswold — a $22 million development market-rate apartments in Detroit's central business district — is expected to begin at the end of this year and be completed in late 2015.

The first new apartment construction in the central business district since 1992 is expected to begin by the end of this year after the Detroit Downtown Development Authority on Wednesday approved a development agreement for a $22 million project.

Construction on The Griswold — an 80-unit development with one-, two- and three-bedroom market-rate apartments at Griswold Street and Michigan Avenue — is expected to begin at the end of this year and be completed in late 2015, according to a release.

The Griswold originally was planned as 80 for-sale condominium units in 2007. The DDA approved a development agreement for that project, but it was shelved that same year because of the economic collapse and the inability to find financing.

The units would be in five new stories constructed atop a 10-story parking garage and retail building next to the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit hotel.

The Roxbury Group in Detroit is the developer. Roxbury is also the developer of the David Whitney Building and the former Globe Trading Co. building along the Detroit River for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Peter Van Dyke, a partner with Detroit-based Berg Muirhead & Associates Inc., which does public relations for The Roxbury Group, said rental rates will be determined closer to the project’s completion next year. That is also when a property management firm will be chosen.

Detroit-based Kraemer Design Group PLC is the project architect and Detroit-based Walbridge Aldinger Co. is the construction manager.

A message left with David Di Rita, principal of The Roxbury Group, was not immediately returned.

The DDA board also authorized on Wednesday the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. to negotiate a development agreement with Farmington Hills-based Village Green Cos. for 200-250 apartments at Washington Boulevard and Park Avenue.

Village Green’s Statler City development, proposed for the site of the former Statler Hilton Hotel on Grand Circus Park, is expected to be complete in 2016. It’s a $30 million to $35 million development, according to the DEGC.

“We have known for some time that people who want to live downtown have found it very difficult to find apartments,” George Jackson, the outgoing president and CEO of the DEGC, said in a news release. “These projects will go a long way toward meeting that demand.”

“It’s great news that there is strong enough demand to build another 300 or more residential units in our downtown core,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said. “This is more evidence that a growing number of people are excited about living in Detroit because they are seeing good things happening.”

In January, Crain’s reported that a group of Michigan and out-of-state investors had plans to build a 118-room boutique hotel, a 700-space parking garage, 150 high-rise residences and three restaurants at the Statler Hilton site, which is owned by the city of Detroit.

The DEGC said at the time that the proposal by the Downtown Detroit Executive Hotel Complex development group had “serious deficiencies.”

The hotel was razed in 2005 ahead of Super Bowl XL in Detroit in 2006.